The Bankrobber

I don't think I've posted this one here before.The Bankrobber is a remarkably weedless fly, well-suited to bank-banging from the front end of a fast-moving driftboat, especially where willow branches and cottonwood roots line a rocky and pebbly deep-water bank. Weight attached to the back side of a down-eye hopper hook flips the point of the hook up, so it rides like a jig.


Because the weight protrudes forward of the eye an eighth of an inch or so, the weight encounters any obstacles before the fly does, which causes the hook to tip up as the fly jumps over the branch unsnagged (leaps over wet branches with a single bound). Bankrobbers don't hook branches. But they do hook fish--almost always at the corners of the upper mouth.


http://montana-riverboats.com/Uploads/Bankrobber.jpg


The Bankrobber originally started off as a stonefly nymph in Dick Stewart's Fly Tyer, 1987 or so. But gradually evolved into a streamer. The V-shaped knotch formed by the eye of the hook and the front-protruding weight can be an annoyance on late season tailwater rivers, when huge quantities of dying water weeds break loose and drift everywhere. But those aren't Bankrobber banks anyway. The Bankrobber is at its best in early summer, as the spring run off wanes on the lower, brush-choked reaches of the lower Madison, Jefferson, Gallatin, Big Hole and Yellowstone rivers.